''Cyclone'' (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

: ''El Ciclón''; also known as ''Terror Storm'') is a 1978 Mexican survival horror film directed by René Cardona Jr. and starring Arthur Kennedy,

Carroll Baker Carroll Baker (born May 28, 1931) is an American former actress. After studying under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, Baker began performing on Broadway in 1954. From there, she was recruited by director Elia Kazan to play the lead in t ...

, and

Lionel Stander Lionel Jay Stander (January 11, 1908 – November 30, 1994) was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television. He is best remembered for his role as majordomo Max on the 1980s mystery television series '' Hart to Hart''. Early ...

. The plot follows a group of passengers from a crashed airplane who find refuge on a small tour boat in the ocean, and who eventually resort to cannibalism for survival. The film is purportedly based in part on Alfred Hitchcock's ''

Lifeboat Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen ...

'' (1944).

Plot

The

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

, somewhere on the coast of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The local authorities receive reports about an approaching cyclone and issue a general alert, but a small passenger plane, a

tour boat A tour boat is a boat used, and frequently purpose-built or adapted, for boat tours, a type of tourism frequently offered in much visited towns and cities of historic interest, that have canals or a river running through it, or that lie on a co ...

and a fishing trawler fail to receive - or heed - the warning and are caught in the storm. The fishing vessel springs a leak and sinks, forcing the fishermen to abandon it; the airplane crashes into the sea, killing most of the passengers and forcing the rest to evacuate; the tour boat's motor is damaged, and one of the tourists is swept overboard and drowns. After the storm has abated, sharks are lured to the area by the dead inside the plane wreck, and subsequently kill one of the drifting survivors. Once the cyclone is gone, the Mexican coast guard starts a fruitless search for the missing, and after three days they abandon hope of finding any survivors. The plane passengers are picked up by the fishermen, and later they are taken in by the drifting tour boat, for a total of twenty-seven people trying to survive. As food and water run out, the fishermen kill a dog belonging to one of the tourists for them to eat. When one of the fishermen dies, he is used to bait a shark, but the shark manages to snatch the corpse away. When one of the tourists perishes, his body is cut up and his flesh cured and salted for food. In addition, one of the female tourists gives birth to a baby. As the days wear on and the situation becomes more and more desperate, it is decided that several of the passengers and Pitorro, the trawler's captain, use the lifeboat to go for help. The drifters are eventually picked up by a passing American yacht, and rescue efforts are initiated. As the night passes, a female passenger dies and is cast overboard by her grieving husband. The next day, when Taylor, a selfish passenger from the plane, tries to appropriate some of the sparse water supply for himself, a fight breaks out, in which course the glass bottom of the boat is shattered. The boat sinks, forcing the occupants into the water. As they float in the sea, sharks are attracted to the scene and devour almost half of the shipwrecked, including Taylor, before two seaplanes arrive and rescue the remaining survivors.

Cast

* Arthur Kennedy as The Priest *

as Sheila *

as Taylor *

Andrés García Andrés García (born May 24, 1941) is a Dominican-born Mexican actor. He has formerly served as a scuba diving instructor in Acapulco. Career García was born and raised in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is the son of Spanish exiles from ...

as Andrés * Hugo Stiglitz as Pilot * Mario Almada as Pitorro *

Olga Karlatos Olga Karlatos ( el, Όλγα Καρλάτου; born Olga Vlassopulos, April 20, 1945) is a retired Greek actress and Bermudian lawyer, known primarily for performing in Italian horror cinema. Career Between the end of the sixties and the e ...

as Monica *Stefania D'Amario as Linda, the Stewardess *

Edith González Edith González Fuentes (; 10 December 1964 – 13 June 2019) was a Mexican actress. She is best remembered for working on multiple telenovelas produced by three different multimedia companies, which included Televisa, TV Azteca and Telemundo. G ...

as Tiersa

Release

The film was released in 1978, though the German and Italian releases were severely censored, toning down the cannibalism subplot. The original cut of the film, released internationally, runs at 114 minutes, while the cut German and Italian releases ran 97 minutes.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=0075901 1978 films 1978 horror films English-language Mexican films Mexican disaster films Films shot in Mexico Films about cannibalism Films about survivors of seafaring accidents or incidents Films about shark attacks Films scored by Riz Ortolani Films about sharks Films set on boats Films set in Mexico Films set in the Caribbean 1970s English-language films 1970s Mexican films